Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  “Which made us even stricter and more protective of Mia,” Vinh Tien tailed off.

  “But you’re sure Jimmy went that route?”

  “Does the cat digest the mouse it eats?”

  Wil shifted on the hard futon. “What about his girlfriend?”

  Pause. “I think that’s where he met Wen. As to why she was there…” He shrugged.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I went to see my brother,” Vinh Tien said after a beat. “I saw the type of girl he favored. Wen was that striking. Even though she was respectful when we met them by chance one time downtown, Jimmy seemed embarrassed. As he should have been.”

  “He was working for Luc now?”

  “That was my belief. Jimmy never lacked for money—far more than I could pay him.” Vinh Tien paused to war with it again. “Have you any idea how that feels? Competing for your own son and losing him?”

  Wil kept his mouth shut, let the man run on.

  “As if everything I’d survived for, worked for, was and is a sham. That only money speaks, no matter how you acquire it.”

  Wil placed the list of contacts Vinh Tien had penciled out on the scrapbook. “All right. I’ll go over these and get back to you, let you know if this is something I can reasonably take on.”

  There was a pause as the meaning set in. “I see. You’re telling me you might not.”

  “There is always that possibility.”

  Vinh Tien expelled a breath, looked fatigued. “If you’re worried about your fee, we have been frugal over the years. And there is the business.”

  “Mr. Tien, I’m more concerned that you have a reasonable expectation of—”

  “Mr. Hardesty,” he said, “do you fear my brother? Or do you hesitate for other reasons?”

  Wil felt a flush. “How can I put this? Sometimes these things are not a match for either party. I meant nothing more and nothing less.”

  Vinh Tien attempted a smile, let it go. “Very well. If that’s how it is to be.”

  They left Jimmy’s room, got Matt up from the patio, Wil requesting his thanks be conveyed to Mrs. Tien. On the way out, he became aware of sounds from down the hall—muffled but unmistakable: a woman’s sobs.

  Vinh Tien’s eyes were those of a man who has taken one too many shots to the head and to the heart. At the stoop, he turned from Wil and from the spot where the Civic had been and quietly shut the door.

  5

  Next morning, Wil drove to Carpinteria and parked by The Coffee Grinder. He and Matt then looped off a moderately paced four-miler through the quiet streets. After scones and a newspaper highlighting last night’s folkdances, he headed back the five miles to La Conchita and home, Matt’s profile like a hood ornament out the window. Showered and shaved, he took his coffee refill onto the deck, opened the scrapbook.

  Jimmy Tien had been reported missing in late November, Vinh also reporting his 38-foot custom rig, Harmony, gone from its harbor slip. An employee of the deli there had seen Jimmy leave with a woman carrying a tote bag around seven a.m. That was it for witness accounts—and for Jimmy and Wen, it seemed—despite an extensive search up and down the Channel, overflights that further gridded-out the four islands. Immediately following a two-day introduction to winter that arrived from Hawaii like a wet bear, bringing with it downed trees and power lines, flooded intersections and parking lots.

  From then until June, there’d been no clues. Island Seafoods reported no cash missing; Vinh’s brother Luc professed to having no idea about Jimmy and Wen’s whereabouts. So had Wen’s mother, who lived not far from their Isla Vista apartment among the university students, alternative stores, and, Wil knew from experience, a fair number of immigrants.

  He reached down to calm Matt, whining and twitching in his sleep; Matt sighed deeply, began breathing more evenly.

  “Hard night all around,” Wil agreed, taking in the sweep of bay before getting back to his articles.

  Morning had dawned without fog, pelicans working the mackerel schools from a hazeless sky. Miles beyond the oil rigs, Anacapa’s craggy grouping stood out; adjacent to it: much-larger Santa Cruz Island, a piece of Santa Rosa—dwarf mammoth habitat in prehistoric times. Cobalt horizon, finger of smog reaching up from L.A. like a grifter’s touch.

  Back at it…

  Sheriff’s Department investigators speculated that Jimmy and Wen had simply gone off to be alone. That was in the first month; beyond it, hope vanished with the news coverage. That is, until the Susan Marie out of Avila Bay wrapped a drag net around “something” a hundred and twenty down off San Miguel. Indeed, Harmony might never have been found had not the dragger broached the park’s six-mile boundary. Instrument malfunction, according to her captain, the matter under review at the time of the report.

  No signs of foul play, fire, or explosion were found by the divers who inspected and photographed the wreck, the rocks into which she’d wedged. Storm-wave caused; no point seen incurring the cost to bring her up. Findings reviewed, verdict rendered, case closed: yet another day trip that had taken a tragic turn.

  Leaving boat-sized questions.

  What brought them out in weather that unpredictable? What reason would anyone—Luc Tien by his brother’s contention—have to harm them? No way of telling unless—

  Phone.

  Wil picked it up, punched ON.

  “Hardesty.”

  “You’re on the deck, aren’t you?” a voice said. “Drinking coffee and eyeing Celia Feyter.”

  Wil let out a short breath.

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” Lisa added.

  “One out of two’s not bad,” he answered.

  “You’re out of coffee? I don’t believe it.”

  “The Feyters moved to Pismo Beach, Leese. Sold it for what they could get.”

  “Ah. And how is the bluff?”

  “No rain, no pain.”

  “Pretty morning, I bet. At least it looks it from the office.”

  Something in her pause: Fiesta Week—Dev’s favorite time of year—their unspoken agreement not to relive it, reopen their fresh-at-the-time wounds, scarred-over in time like the marriage. Now if they even approached the subject, it was with this kind of dance-around-it obliqueness.

  “You all right?” he asked her.

  “Couldn’t be better. You?”

  “The same. You ready for the list?”

  Their standing joke, high ground in the days after the divorce, when they’d run into one other around town. The Howits.

  “How’s the business? The folks? Brandon?”

  “Still there,” she answered. “How is Kari Thayer?”

  Wil stroked Matt, who was listening now, head cocked. “As it happens, vacationing in Wisconsin with her son.”

  “The juvenile delinquent?”

  “He’s doing better. Besides, they don’t call them that anymore. Troubled youth or something.”

  “I stand corrected.” There was another pause before, “Wil, can we meet today, have lunch or something? Staff’s off for the parade, so we’d have the office patio to ourselves.”

  Fiesta Parade: silvered horses, vaqueroed riders, flowered floats, plugged intersections, cordoned streets. “Leese, I can think of better days for parking downtown.”

  “You’ll find a spot,” she countered. “Anytime would be good.”

  “Look, if something is—”

  “Feeling sorry for myself is all, not what you think. Another time, if you don’t feel like it.”

  Now Wil paused. “Leese, I didn’t say that.”

  “Must just be me, then, hon. Don’t step in the pelican poop.”

  6

  The Nam Sun Jewelry Exchange was located in L.A.’s Koreatown, on Normandie, down from 8th. Greasy-spoon breakfast and lunch place advertising homemade kim chee next door, dry cleaning franchise down from that, bargain clothing emporium facing the alley that ran between the two stores. Couple of miles from the King-verdict riots that landed the guys who beat a trapped truck driver almos
t to death a slap on the wrist and lots of shiny new things in the hands of opportunistic shoppers who’d suddenly found them available at no cost.

  Plus a shitload of Colts, Glocks, Remingtons, and Berettas from the looted gun outlets and pawnshops squarely in the wrong hands.

  Or the right hands, depending on your point of view, Tam Minh thought as he eased the van to a stop in the alleyway across the street.

  Through the van’s tinted windshield, Trong, the leader; Lang, second in command; Kenny; and Tam, the new guy—watched the owner, Mr. Nam Sun, his wife and daughters getting ready for the morning trade. Finally, at ten minutes to ten, Nam Sun clanked open his accordion grate, broomed the already hot sidewalk, and pronounced the store open by means of the small sign he turned around on its chain in the window.

  Trong, riding shotgun, popped the dash with a fist. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  “With kids in there?” Lang responded.

  “He’s right.” Kenny from the back. “Motherfuck! Why today?”

  “Their problem, not ours,” Trong said coldly. Still, he hesitated, Tam noted.

  Lang said, “Why not wait, see if mama-san runs them off to school? Be that much easier.”

  Kenny nodded. Tam did, too, but not too hard, not wanting to show disrespect to the leader.

  “Check it out, dude’s looking over here right now,” Trong said of Mr. Sun. “I say we hit before he does something dumb.”

  “I still don’t like it.” Lang again.

  “Good thing you ain’t in charge,” Trong demeaned him. “It’s August, remember? No school.”

  “Like there’s no such thing as summer school. Come on, man, a few minutes…”

  “He’s looking.” Trong.

  Tam gripped the steering wheel. It was true, Mr. Sun was looking their way. He was aware of his sweat, his mouth drier than usual. How could that be? The guy was just checking the street, taking a break to case the foot traffic. His reflection on the glass. No way otherwise.

  “We go,” Trong said. “Tam you come with us, handle the kids. Tape ‘em to something or lock ‘em in a closet or something, then help with the gold. Rock and roll.”

  Tam felt his fear escalate as Kenny tossed him a roll of duct tape.

  “Me?” he said. “Who pulls the van up front when you’re done?” The frog thing jumping into his voice.

  “Can’t be helped. Big score, everybody in,” Trong came back. Already with his nine out, working the slide and tucking it back in his waistband under the tropical shirt he wore over slacks. Adding now, “When he buzzes me in, you three are right behind: bang-bang. Got it?” Not waiting for a response because this part they’d gone over to where Tam Minh could do it in his sleep.

  Except this new thing with the kids.

  Through the plate glass window Tam could see their black hair bobbing around the jewelry cases. Helping mama-san set up the displays.

  Motherfuck…

  7

  Knowing how jammed Santa Barbara would be with vintage cars, drill teams, and castanet-clacking dance clubbers, Wil left Matt sacked out at home and took the back way in. He found a spot not far from Lisa’s new office and pulled in ahead of a Caravan whose costumed pre-teens shot him a bird. Two blocks from the crowds lining State Street, he strolled into a Spanish-motif three-story with a sandstone courtyard, took the stairs up the tiled flights, entered an open doorway.

  “Lisa?…”

  “In here.” Looking up from her computer as Wil took note of the Annick Goutal he used to gift her with.

  “Some boss you work for,” he said, scoping out her silk tee and Calvins, jade broach a grandmother had left her. Black hair swept off a neck that still quickened his pulse after twenty-plus years of marriage, three now of divorce.

  “The landlord liked us, or Bev he did, anyway.” Closing down the spreadsheet she was working on. “Changed your mind, I see.”

  “Never made it up. I thought tax season was over.”

  “Gone are those days,” she said. “Accounting is like painting the Golden Gate bridge now. Back and forth.”

  He shrugged. “Keeps you in Accuras.”

  “A two-year-old Lexus, Wil, leased. And please don’t start.”

  “Me?” He held out the bag he’d brought along, grease stains already spotting the bottom. “The Mercado guy made some earlies for me. Remembering the way you do breakfast.”

  “That’s thoughtful.”

  “I’ve always thought so.”

  “But who listens, right?”

  They went downstairs. Under a green metal umbrella and table outside, she teased her flauta while Wil finished a second chimichanga.

  “The guy promised me they don’t bite back, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” he said.

  “Wil, do you ever wonder where your life is headed? Like maybe you’ve outsmarted yourself?”

  “Unsmarting myself is more my speed.”

  She shook her head, put down her fork as he canted his head at the building to add, “Leases can be broken, if that’s the worry.”

  “Leases I know about,” she said. “Deferred trusts I know about.”

  Through the opening before his censor could intercept, he said, “Speaking of which, how is the boy wonder?” Surprising even himself at how easily it made it past the gates.

  “Brandon is someplace we’re not going today,” she said without looking up.

  “Nice weather we’re having.”

  Now the eyes met his. “Wil, you want to talk May-December, we’ll talk.”

  “Kari’s thirty-seven,” he said flatly. “End of story.”

  “So is Brandon. Almost.”

  “And if memory serves, you called me.”

  “Brandon is not the problem here, Wil. Yes he plays baseball, yes he’s away a lot and up to here with his shop. But he’s not what you think. He has a mind, he has feelings—and he doesn’t need me to defend him.” She shoved her chair back and stood, sun catching the red in her hair and bouncing it off his libido. “I guess this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

  “Come on, Leese,” he said. “We can do better than this. I can do better.” Hands spread to make the point.

  “Right—and I always get a pile of stuff done while there’s nobody in the office. Thanks for the burrito.”

  8

  Trying for calm, Tam Minh watched Trong saunter across Normandie—just looking into something nice for his girl—easy does it, no thing. Besides, Tam thought, in was in, the Nam Sun Jewelry Exchange represented a big step up from street strongarms and collecting from the merchants who refused to meet his eyes while handing over their bi-weeklies. And if fate brought the little ones into it, who was Tam to argue? Being in, you didn’t have to worry about what, just when.

  Like right now.

  “Trong’s inside,” Lang snapped. “Move it.”

  Chrome S&W .40 in his waistband, lavender shirt open the requisite two buttons; red, black, and green tattoo curling over his right biceps, though Tam couldn’t see it, just knew it was there. Like Kenny’s dragon was under his striped Hilfiger, coiled in the hollow of his left shoulder blade. And Tam’s own, still tender but getting there, over his right nipple: individuality that was important to Tam, important to them all—something to distinguish yourself from the rest as you moved up the ladder, the beauty of their system.

  Respectable: like American business was supposed to be.

  Bottom line: Look like a gangsta, you went down like one.

  Except Tam’s attempts at distracting himself weren’t working. Crossing through a break, he could feel his heart pounding its way out his chest, breath coming in gasps, a voice admonishing him, You wanted this, now do it.

  Then the three of them were through the still-buzzing security door behind Trong, who had his nine already screwed into Nam Sun’s ear as his wife screamed not to hurt her husband and the girls just screamed.

  Kenny pulling a sledge hammer out from the duffel bag he’d carri
ed in. Glass shattered and sprayed onto their clothes.

  “Easy, fool,” Lang shouted. “What’d I tell you.”

  Kenny moved to another display case, shortened his arc. Lang produced a pillow case and began picking rings and pendants out of the glass shards. “Ow,” he went suddenly, holding up a finger already bloodied. “Motherfuck.”

  “The gold or your brains on the wall,” Trong yelled at Nam Sun.

  “Don’t hurt. We have no gold.” Mrs. Nam Sun.

  “The safe, open the safe. DO IT!”

  Lang snapped his fingers, pointed to the wife and daughters, who, Tam could see, were maybe eight and nine—pretty things reminding him of his half-sisters back in Vung Tau—making him wonder how they were doing, before snapping out of it. Daughters follow mother, he’d reasoned, and now he reached out and grabbed Mrs. Sun by the wrist.

  Which only made the girls scream louder.

  He began yanking Mrs. Sun behind the swinging door leading to the back, but she was stronger than he expected. Twisting, kicking, holding her free hand out to the screaming girls, she was all Tam could handle. Even then, she managed to break his grip.

  Just in time for Lang to bounce his .40 off her skull.

  Hands to her head, Mrs. Sun staggered a step and crumpled.

  “Now,” Lang said, nodding at the girls. “Can you handle them?”

  Tam just stood there as Nam Sun, seeing his wife fall, renewed his struggle with Trong. Grunting with the effort, his hand caught the barrel of Trong’s nine. They began swaying—back and forth until the nine went off, burnt powder adding to the reek of sweat and fury.

  Nam Sun let go, grabbed his hand.

  “Korean fuck,” Trong yelled at him, the gun now in his face. “Last chance, then we kill them.” Pointing at Tam pulling the girls through the door.

  Tam felt his heart double-clutch. Kill the girls? Trong’s rage was loose now, a dragon they all feared. Tam had seen it before when Trong was beating an 18th Streeter with an aluminum bat, shouting single, double, triple, home run each time he connected.